Join us at this year’s International Digital Security Forum (IDSF)!

We are very happy to announce that Nikos Sarris, our Project Coordinator,  and Laura Loguercio, Journalist at SOMA’s partner Pagella Politica, will be part of this year’s International Digital Security Forum (IDSF).

Under the motto “Security in times of pandemics and major global events”, the IDSF 2020 is organized as a virtual conference from 2 – 3 December 2020 by the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA, in cooperation with go-international, a shared export-initiative of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.

Nikos Sarris will be part of the session Fake News – The new role of media on December 2nd, at 10:40 – 11:40 CET. In his talk, ‘Collaborative efforts against disinformation’ our Coordinator will discuss the collaborative effort of the European Observatory against Disinformation operated by the SOMA project and its successor the European Digital Media Observatory.  He will furthermore explain the operation principles and have a quick walkthrough over the technological tools made available to the observatory members. You can see more information about the session here.

Laura Loguercio will be part of the session Fake News – Undermining Democracy’ on December 2nd, at 09:30 – 10:30 CET. In her talk ‘Why do we believe in fake news? A journey into the cognitive layers of disinformation’, the journalist will focus on the reason why people believe in misinformation, and rely on it to shape their understanding of the world.  She will furthermore elaborate on how the Italian fact-checking websites Pagella Politica and Facta partnered with De Facto – a project funded by the European Union, designed and managed by Bulgarian researchers at NTCenter – to conduct a collaborative investigation aimed at exploring how our cognitive layers contribute to the way we manage misinformation, and make us believe or deny the claims we interact with on a daily basis. You can see more information about the session here.

You can register here to join the discussions and meetings: https://idsf.io/registration/

A few words about the event

COVID-19 has led to challenges and chaos to many aspects of life. It is hard to imagine a sector of society that has not been somehow impacted and will continue to be for an extended period of time. During this period and the recovery period, technology has been a major facilitator for understanding and tracking the pandemics, but also in allowing a level of remote presence for both work and social engagement.

Work from Home” has become the norm for many. The International Digital Security Forum (IDSF) seeks to bring together international and national leadership and stakeholders in information exchange and collaboration. The goal is to build collective knowledge of lessons learned and to build partnership for pandemic and major event mitigation.